by Jaden Wilkes
The doctor came around to the front, slipped on a pair of glasses that made his eyes bulge and contort in an almost comical fashion, and produced a thin needle and thread from somewhere in his pack.
He said something in Romanian, Boian told Dimitri, “He said this is going to hurt, so don’t be a pussy.”
Dimitri laughed and said, “No worries there.” He gritted his teeth and thought of Columbia to distract himself from the pain. As the needle was drawn through his inflamed flesh, he imagined her running along the sand. The last time he’d returned from Bucharest, when he’d found her naked in the water. He imagined her like that, her skin warm and willing, pliable under his hands.
He felt his cock stir and had to bring himself back to the pain. He didn’t need to get hard while being sewn up. He had a reputation to maintain amongst Boian’s people. Dimitri the Enforcer, not Dimitri the sex crazed pain freak.
That was for Columbia’s knowledge, and hers alone.
God how he missed her. Killing white suit had done nothing to alleviate the longing he felt for her, the black hole her absence left in his life and his heart. The blood, the pain, the bullet wound…it all felt a million miles away from his body when she was gone from his world.
He needed her back by his side, or he might as well be dead.
“They’re not far from here,” Boian said, “Six hours drive. We need to make our move soon, before they’re moved again.”
“Six hours?” Dimitri asked. Columbia was that close, what was he doing here? Why was he wasting his time? “Where are they, exactly? We should fly instead of drive, we could do it in two.”
“We’ve located this English speaking bastard’s fortress outside a town called Rădăuți, near the Ukraine border. If we don’t act fast, he could take them across the border and even back into Russia. You know how it is, if he gets them into Russia, it will be impossible to find them.”
“This is true,” Dimitri replied and winced as Albu leaned down and tugged at the thread.
Albu muttered something in Romanian and Boian said, “He told me if you’d shut the fuck up, he could finish his job.”
“He’s a mouthy prick, isn’t he?” Dimitri said but fell silent after that.
“That he is, and he’s a bit of a pig, but he’s an excellent doctor. As long as I keep him in khat, he keeps tending to the lot of us.”
Dimitri nodded and let Albu complete his task. When he was done, he produced a small pair of scissors and cut the stitches with a dramatic flourish. Boian produced a small, paper packet and handed it to Albu. They spoke for a moment; the doctor bowed, tucked the package into an inner pocket of his filthy jacket, packed up his kit and was gone.
“I’ll have somebody take you back to your hotel,” Boian said. “Get some rest. We need you in top condition for our rescue operation.”
Dimitri thanked him and once again was impressed with how Sanda’s son handled himself. He realized that Boian had something he’d never needed to have…leadership. Dimitri was used to commanding a few men here and there, but Boian existed under the pressure of managing a rag tag army of people hell bent on defying their country. The stress it must produce made Dimitri happy for his simple life with Columbia.
Back at the hotel, he had a shower and checked himself in the mirror. He’d be damned, Albu had done a fine job with the stitches, he might not even have a scar once it healed.
He fell into bed and let himself fall asleep dreaming of Columbia’s soft, thick hair as it fell down her back, the scars on her flesh that always seemed to align to his, and her delicious, waiting body opening to him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
COLUMBIA
“We know his name,” the doctor said in his cruel, sibilant voice. “He told us right before I gutted him. You know, the human body can handle so much. I made a slit right here,” he said and drew his hand across her abdomen through her stained hoodie, “and pulled his intestines out. I made him watch as I cut pieces of them out, inch by inch, until he died. It took almost an hour, and he screamed your name the entire time.”
She didn’t believe him, Dimitri would never tell this pig her name, as she would never say his.
“Excellent, you don’t believe me,” he said, “I love this part. Now I get to fuck with you.”
He nodded to the guards on either side of her and they began to punch her. She was strapped to the dental chair again, but her mid section was free. Their blows rained down, leaving her crying and coughing, gasping for breath.
They were relentless in their attack; they pummeled her and laughed the entire time, calling to each other in another language. They seemed to be encouraging each other, driving themselves on to greater violence.
She felt her rib break, then another. She screamed in pain and terror, but also rage. She wanted nothing more than to free herself and drag a knife across the throats of every single man she’d encountered down here.
She wanted to bathe herself in their blood, tear their flesh with her teeth, carve their eyes out and force them down their throats.
She wanted to watch them all burn, as hot and hard as she burned now. Her insides felt bruised and each breath was a torture, an exercise in futility to try and avoid the pain.
“Stop,” the doctor called. “I know we’re not getting anywhere, but I have good news for you. The boss is back, you see. He wants a private audience with you later. So stay here, be a good girl and wait for him. Then you’ll understand what cruelty is.”
They tightened her straps and dragged new ones across the places they’d just beaten. She cried as they tightened those, cutting into her already swelling flesh.
She thought she felt her baby kick, protest against the adrenaline surging through her body, and she wondered how it would ever be normal, having grown in this situation.
They turned out the lights and left her in the dark. She welcomed it though, settled her breathing and allowed herself to concentrate on Dimi, finding him and being back in his arms.
She raged against the little voice inside her head that wondered if he would have her back. What if she never walked normally again? What if she couldn’t let him be near her, inside of her, for a while? What if she never healed?
She cried continually, marveling at where her tears came from. Her mouth was so dry she probably would have drank the doctor’s spit had he offered it. She hadn’t eaten in a long while, and hadn’t had anything to drink in even longer.
Iryna had been bad off too. She had slept longer and longer between their talks, and both of them had tried to remain cheerful, telling funny stories about Dimi, talking about their childhoods.
Columbia was certain Iryna would never talk to her again if she told her about killing Sergei. She had kept it to herself so far, but knew she would have to confess at some point.
The lights came on and she woke with a start. She cried out at the pain in her ribs. The foot was throbbing again, but she had gotten used to that dull background sensation, it was like white noise to her now.
“Well then,” a man said, “what do we have here?”
She lifted her head; he was American, sounded slightly southern. He had a hat pulled down low over his face and was wearing gloves and a heavy jacket. He walked close to her and said, “Hello there, how are you?”
It was so normal in such a crazy situation that she started to laugh. How was she? How the fuck did he think she was? She refused to answer.
“I’m sorry, that was rather insensitive of me,” he said, “Let’s start over. Hi there, my name is Mace, what is yours?”
Mace. The man who had betrayed her Dimi, the brother of the man they’d killed in Hong Kong. Mace was the boss now; he was the one who’d filled Sergei’s shoes and taken over his operations.
He wasn’t English, but he spoke English. All those informants and men they’d killed had been on the right track, but the wrong continent. They hadn’t been looking for a Brit; they’d been looking for a fucking American, Mace.
“I
see you recognize my name, and I think I know who you are working for,” Mace said and took his hat off. Columbia then realized half his face was decimated, from the same fire Dimi had survived. It was puckered and thickened into swirling knots of flesh. He hadn’t been a good-looking man before the fire, and this only made him worse. Like something from a horror movie or a child’s nightmare.
“I’m sorry, my appearance startles you. You’d think you’d be used to burned flesh, being Sokolov’s whore.”
She winced at Dimi’s name and knew she’d given it away in that moment. She was so weak and pathetic.
Mace leaned over her, close enough for her to smell his fetid breath, and said, “Bingo. I thought so.” He turned back to the door and called out, “Come in, things are about to get interesting.”
The doctor returned with the two thugs. Columbia closed her eyes and tried to slip away, flee from what was going to happen. Her stomach ached, her ribs burned and her foot was pulsing as if under pressure. She worried it might be infected.
“Open them,” Mace demanded and slapped her face. “I want you to see this.”
He gestured to the guards and they removed the bonds from her upper body. They pulled her up and tears spilled from her eyes as her broken ribs protested. The doctor handed Mace a knife and he used it to tear up Columbia’s hoodie, cutting it from her body. The guards tore it off her along with the tee shirt she wore underneath.
Mace stepped back, took one look at her and started to laugh, a cruel and horrible sound.
“This is what that fucking Russian gets? This is all he can afford these days? Second rate whores who have been worked over and left for dead?”
He stared at Columbia, waiting for her reaction. “Or did he do this to you? Does he still love inflicting pain on the cunts he pays for?” He pinched her nipple and twisted it, making her gasp. He let it go, watched her face, and gave her a sharp punch to her broken rib. She cried out and felt the ribs grind against each other. “He did inflict a lot of pain back then,” Mace continued, “he loved to make them scream. Sometimes he let them live.”
Columbia hated that about Dimitri’s past, and this information did get to her. She lowered her eyes and tried to look away. She hated that Dimi might have once been as cruel as these men, but in her deepest soul, she had to believe he’d been different, even back then.
And in her deepest soul, she forgave him, even if he hadn’t been.
Mace grabbed her chin roughly and pulled her face back to look at him. “I guess if your disgusting body is good enough for one cripple, it will be good enough for two.”
He motioned to the guards again and they pushed her back down. She landed with a hard crash against the dental chair. Her ribs crunched under the pressure of them tightening up the bonds again, but she fought against crying out, fought back her tears.
He moved to her legs and the guards tore them wide apart. His pants were already down and his cock in hand. Now that his gloves were off, she could see more of the burns, he’d been affected on both of them and the skin looked bubbled and pained.
Regrettably, his cock hadn’t been burned in the fire.
He stroked himself and she shut her eyes again. She felt the chair lean back, lifting her legs up and the recliner portion parted, spreading her legs even wider. She felt a slap and one of the guards was standing next to her, making sure her eyes were open.
“I’m going to fuck you a few times, then these fine gentlemen are going to wreck you. The Beast will never be able to enjoy your cunt again,” Mace said and jerked himself. His breath came faster and he moved between her legs. The straps kept her immobile; unable to move in the chair, like some parody of a gynecologist’s examining table, kept her from struggling. She couldn’t move.
He got closer, reached down and shoved his fingers inside of her. He jabbed them deep and mashed his thumb against her clit. He got a strange look on his face, pulled it back, examined it and bellowed, “Which one of you fucked her? I said leave her alone, she was mine and mine alone!”
He was angry, he roared as he demanded to know who’d been assaulting Columbia before he had his chance.
She was confused, she didn’t remember being raped. Had somebody come in while she was passed out?
The doctor said, “I used an instrument on her, but it didn’t even go in. I swear…she was unharmed. Mostly.”
“Then explain this,” Mace said and shoved his fingers in the doctor’s face. Columbia could see it streaked with blood, thick and dark and clotted.
She couldn’t be having her period; she was pregnant.
And that’s when it occurred to her.
She was losing the baby.
Dimitri’s baby.
It couldn’t have possibly survived all she’d been through, and now she was losing it.
She’d failed him; she’d allowed these men to kill their child.
She started to cry, to sob, and to scream.
The men turned to her like she was possessed, inhuman and terrifying.
“Take her back to her cell,” Mace said, disgust clear on his ruined face. “I have to go clean up.” He zipped up his pants and stormed from the room, the doctor right on his heels.
The two guards undid the bonds and dragged Columbia from the chair. She screamed in agony and twisted against them. Every cell in her body was on fire, every nerve alight with pain. She cried the entire time they pulled her back; she could now feel the blood running down her inner thighs, evidence of her failure.
“Here,” one of the men said as they reached her door. “Cover yourself.”
He thrust a filthy light blue formal dress in her hand. It had a sharp tear down the front and was stained with blood. She shuddered to think about what happened to the girl who’d owned it before her. She slipped it over her head; it was much too large and made her feel like she was wearing somebody else’s prom dress.
She turned back to ask for something to clean herself with, rags or the torn shreds of her hoodie even, but the guard nearest her gave her a hard shove, laughed when she landed on the floor and immediately curled up in pain, and slammed the door shut.
She was once again in the dark. Her only companion was sorrow. For the throbbing in her foot, her broken ribs and now her dying baby.
She managed to crawl to the bed and pulled herself up. She stuffed the blanket between her legs and curled on her side to alleviate the pain.
The fetal position, she thought, what a bitter irony.
She lay like that, miserable and choked with cramps and shivering in agony. For how long, she didn’t know.
Her body finally gave a last shuddering heave and she felt something slip from her. She was almost too afraid to find out, but she let her finger trail to the blanket and felt a wet mass, as small as a walnut, flattened and soft.
She pulled her hand back and couldn’t stand the thought of touching it again. She pushed the blanket back between her legs to soak the remaining blood and edged herself up the bed to fall back down.
She was clotting; her cramps worsened and came on in strong waves of sensation. It broke up the torment of her foot and ribs, a different type of physical turmoil in the midst of her emotional one.
“Columbia?” Iryna’s voice broke into her tower of pain. She imagined herself atop it, ready to tumble down the edge at any moment. In her misery, she recognized that she didn’t deserve Iryna’s kindness.
She was not fit to carry Dimi’s baby, she was not fit for human interaction.
She was deconstructing herself mentally, emotionally, and if she’d had a sharp object handy, she would’ve done her best to deconstruct herself physically. She imagined her skin splitting and releasing the pent up rage and sorrow.
She was broken and wanted to escape her skin, her life. She suppressed a sob and shivered in the cool air.
“Columbia!” Iryna’s voice broke through her fog again. “Speak to me, what’s going on?”
Her voice was so warm, so sincere and so distressed that
Columbia felt compelled to answer. But she didn’t deserve this kindness; she’d killed the girl’s father.
“I’m losing his baby,” she whispered, “I’m being punished.”
“Oh my god, I’m sorry,” Iryna replied. “What can I do? I want to help.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Columbia said, “the baby’s gone.”
She thought of the thing she’d touched on the blanket earlier and her heart tore in two. She should have known she’d never be able to bring life into the world, she was damaged beyond repair, she wasn’t worthy of being a mother.
“Please, talk to me,” Iryna said, “remember you have to promise me, you won’t stop fighting.”
“I can’t,” Columbia said; she felt hot tears leaking from her eyes again. She was so far gone, so far from feeling strong and loved, so far from being human that she lashed out. “I killed your father,” she said and moaned; her body hurt so much she couldn’t focus.
“What?” Iryna said, “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I did it, in Paris,” Columbia went on, “Dimitri let me. Your Uncle Dimi held him and I shoved a knife inside of him. I killed him.”
Iryna was silent and Columbia wanted to weep for losing her only friend. She had done it to herself, she lacked a razorblade to punish her skin, so she turned to the only thing she had that was valuable in this place. Iryna’s friendship.
She wanted to scream and shriek her rage, her self-loathing taking over and her world crumbling around her.
All she could think was that she deserved to be alone, she deserved this pain and she deserved to be abandoned here. Her mind was cracking and she needed to get away from everything, to curl up in her safe place and forget any of this had happened.
She closed her eyes and regulated her breathing. She tried to force herself to dream of somewhere without Dimitri, his presence was too much for her to bear. How could she possibly go back to him and confess that she had lost their baby? How could she ever expect him to forgive her?
The problem was that there was nowhere in her mind that didn’t contain her Dimi. Every time she thought she was alone, his eyes flooded her thoughts, his hands, his touch, his cock, his voice, harsh and thick when he came, declaring his love for her.
